Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Protectors?

According to a leaked report French peacekeeping troops in
the Central African Republic have been accused of raping and sodomizing the
same “starving and homeless young boys” they were supposed to have been protecting.
Children described how they were sexually exploited in return for food and
money.

Paula Donovan, of the Aids Free World advocacy group, explainedto The Guardian, “The regular sex abuse by peacekeeping personnel uncovered
here and the United Nations’ appalling disregard for victims are
stomach-turning, but the awful truth is that this isn’t uncommon. The UN’s
instinctive response to sexual violence in its ranks – ignore, deny, cover up,
dissemble – must be subjected to a truly independent commission of inquiry with
total access, top to bottom, and full subpoena power.”

The UN has faced several scandals in the past relating to
its failure to act over paedophile rings operating in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, Kosovo and Bosnia. It has also faced allegations of sexual misconduct
by its troops in Haiti, Burundi and Liberia.

Bea Edwards, of the Government Accountability Project, an
international charity that supports whistleblowers, condemned the UN for its
witch-hunt against the aid worker, who has been involved in humanitarian work
for more than 30 years, Anders Kompass, a whistleblower who had acted to stop
the abuse of children. who passed the document to the French authorities
because of the UN’s failure to take action to stop the abuse and now suspended
from his job.